She jumped up and ran after Garan, finding him at a desk in his offices, scribbling madly in coded letters.
"I have rules," she said to him.
He stilled his pen, raised expressionless eyes to her face, and waited.
"When you bring me an old servant who's come willingly where the king's men have bidden him, a man who's never been convicted, or even accused, of a crime," Fire said, "I will not take his mind. I'll sit before him and ask questions, and if my presence makes him more talkative, very well. But I will not compel him to say things he would otherwise not have said. Nor," she added, voice rising, "will I take the mind of a person who's been fed too little, or denied medicines, or beaten in your gaols. I won't manipulate a prisoner you've mistreated."
Garan sat back and crossed his arms. "That's rich, isn't it? Your own manipulation is mistreatment; you've said it yourself."
"Yes, but mine is meant to be for good reason. Yours is not."
"It's not my mistreatment. I don't give the orders down there, I've no idea what goes on."
"If you want me to question them, you'd best find out."
To Garan's credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. "Best dungeons I ever been in," he said, chewing on a toothpick.
"Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he'd gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers."
"A prison with a monster on its staff of interrogators is not likely to grow a reputation for kindness," Nash responded, quietly. Some loved to be brought before her, loved her presence too much to care what she caused them to reveal; but for the most part, Nash was right. She met with tens, gradually hundreds, of different spies and smugglers and soldiers who came into the room sullenly, sometimes even fighting the guards, needing to be dragged. She asked them questions in their minds. When did you last speak to Mydogg? What did he say? Tell me every word. Which of our spies is he trying to turn? Which of our soldiers are traitors? She took a breath and forced herself to plumb and twist and pound – sometimes even to threaten. No, you're lying again. One more lie and you'll start to feel pain. You believe that I can make you feel pain, don't you?
I'm doing this for the Dells, she told herself over and over when her own capacity for bullying made her numb with shame and panic. I'm doing this to protect the Dells from those who would destroy it.
"In a three-way war," said a prisoner who'd been caught smuggling swords and daggers to Gentian, "it seems to me that the king has the advantage of numbers. Doesn't it seem that way to you, Lady? Does anyone know Mydogg's numbers for sure?"
He was a fellow who kept tearing away from her hold, polite and pleasant and cloud-brained one moment, the next moment clear-headed, fighting against the shackles around his wrists and ankles, whimpering at the sight of her.
She nudged at his mind now, pushing him away from his own empty speculations and centering him on his actual knowledge.
"Tell me about Mydogg and Gentian," she said. "Do they intend to mount an attack this summer?"
"I don't know, Lady. I've heard nothing about it but rumours."
"Do you know Gentian's numbers?"
"No, but he buys an infinite number of swords."
"How many is 'infinite'? Be more specific."
"I don't know specifics," he said, still speaking truthfully, but beginning to break free again, the reality of his situation in this room coming back to him. "I have nothing more to say to you," he announced suddenly, staring at her big-eyed, beginning to shake. "I know what you are. I won't let you use me."
"I don't enjoy using you," Fire said tiredly, allowing herself, for a moment at least, to say what she felt. She watched him as he yanked at his wrists and gasped and fell back in his chair, exhausted and sniffling. Then she reached up and tugged at her headscarf so that her hair came tumbling down. The brightness startled him; he gaped at her, astonished; in that instant, she pushed into his mind again and grabbed hold easily. "What are these rumours you've heard about the plans of the rebel lords?"
"Well, Lady," he said, transformed again, smiling cheerfully. "I hear that Lord Mydogg wants to make himself the king of the Dells and Pikkia. Then he wants to use Pikkian boats to explore the sea and find new lands to conquer. A Pikkian smuggler told me that, Lady."
I'm getting better at this, Fire thought to herself. I'm learning all the cheap, disgusting little tricks.
And the muscles of her mind were stretching; practice was making her quicker, stronger. Control was becoming an easy – even comfortable – position for her to assume.
But all she ever learned were vague plans for attack someplace sometime soon, random violent intentions against Nash or Brigan, sometimes against herself. Swift changes in alliance that changed back again just as swiftly. Like Garan and Clara and everyone else, she was waiting to discover something solid, something large and treacherous that could serve as a call to action.
They were all waiting for a breakthrough. But sometimes Fire just wished desperately that she were allowed the occasional moment of solitude.
She had been a summer baby and in July her birthday passed – with little fanfare, for she kept the fact of it to herself. Archer and Brocker both had flowers sent. Fire smiled at this, for they would have sent something else had they known how many men of the court and the city had been sending her flowers, constantly, endlessly, flowers and more flowers, since her arrival two months ago. Her rooms were always a hothouse. She would have pitched them, the cut orchids and lilies and fine tall roses, for she had no interest in the attentions of these men; except that she loved the flowers, she loved being surrounded by the beauty of them. She found she had a knack for arranging them, colour to colour.
The king never sent flowers. His feelings had not changed, but he had stopped begging her to marry him. In fact, he'd asked her to teach him guarding against monsters. So over a series of days and weeks, each on either side of her door, she had taught him what he already knew but needed a push to remember. Intention, focus, and self-control. With practice, and with his new gloomy commitment to discipline, his mind became stronger and they moved the lessons to his office. He could be trusted now not to touch her, except when he'd had too much wine, which he did on occasion. They were irritating, his drunken tears, but at least drunk he was easy to control.
Of course, everyone in the palace noticed every time they were together, and thoughtless talk was easy. It was a solid spoke in the rumour wheel that the monster would eventually marry the king.
Brigan was away most of July. He came and went constantly, and now Fire understood where he was always going. Aside from the considerable time he spent with the army, he met with people: lords, ladies, businessmen of the black market, friends, enemies, talking this one or that one into an alliance, testing the loyalty of another. In some cases, spying was the only word for what he was doing. And sometimes fighting himself out of traps he wittingly or unwittingly walked into, coming back with bandages on his hand, black eyes, a cracked rib one time that would have stopped any sane person from riding. It was horrendous, Fire thought, some of the situations Brigan bounded off to throw himself into. Surely someone else should handle negotiations with a weapons dealer who was known to perform favours for Mydogg on occasion. Surely someone else should go to the well-guarded and isolated manor of Gentian's son, Gunner, in the southern peaks, to make clear the consequences if Gunner remained loyal to his father.